Opinion: Smooth sailing takes a good crew

2017 Economic Impact Awards

by: Peter Herschend, Guest Columnist

Posted online August 17, 2017 | 2:13 pm

Editor’s Note

As Springfield Business Journal reflects on 37 years in publishing, we thought it prudent to ask one of the most influential in our community to share his perspective on what makes a business withstand the test of time.

Peter Herschend was SBJ’s 2016 Lifetime Achievement in Business Award recipient.

Herschend, along with brother Jack, were instrumental in developing Silver Dollar City around the family’s Marvel Cave, which led to a business that today operates 26 theme parks, resorts and aquariums –including Ride the Ducks, White Water, Dollywood and the Harlem Globetrotters. The following are his reflections on how to keep the ship afloat and sailing straight.

—Emily Letterman, Features Editor

It is always tempting and indeed the tradition to select one person who almost single-handedly brought fame and fortune to the nation, or our state or our community. And of course, there is always the ship’s captain who is in charge. He points the ship in the right direction and knows where the ship is headed.

Staying with the analogy of our ship, the captain does have a level of knowledge and strategic understanding that the rest of us who are the crew cannot possess.

But here’s the real secret to the success of the captain and the ship: Without the crew of dedicated men and women each working at their assigned task, and doing it with excellence, the captain could not even leave the dock, much less impact the world surrounding his ship.

That is what happens when the great leaders of our community decide on the direction and objectives of their programs and projects.

Every one of these remarkable men and women – Robert Spence, Jim Anderson, Johnny Morris, Jack Stack, my brother Jack Herschend and dozens more – will readily tell you they are powerless without their crew. And the crew isn’t just the higher echelon of direct reports. Those same individual leaders will have seen to it that the crew, all the way down to the lowest of the ranks, will be on board and committed.

In our business at Silver Dollar City, it is just as important, if not more so, that the men and women of the park understand the corporate mission and are committed to it.

Anything less than that focus, established by leadership and executed throughout the ranks, is almost guaranteed to bring results less than the leader with his hand on the wheel really expects.

I have seen it time and again throughout the day-to-day operations of Silver Dollar City, when, for example, a parking lot attendant fails to understand or deliver on our mission statement to “create memories worth repeating.” The likelihood of us reaching the objective the captain set is diminished just a little. It is true for the parking guy and true for the divisional vice president.

The captain sets the objective. The whole crew gets him there.

Peter Herschend is the co-owner of Herschend Family Entertainment Corp. He can be reached at pherschend@aol.com.